The Replaced(72)

Simon might have checked on me, but I wouldn’t have known since the second we were on the road, I’d leaned my head back and shut those eyes of mine, trying to block out the guilt about leaving Alex Walker behind.

I felt sick most of the ride back to Blackwater Ranch.

I mean, I guess we’d had to do it. I doubt we’d have been able to get him away from there, from those guys, unnoticed. And then what? They would have followed us? They would have known exactly where we were, where Blackwater was?

What kind of option was that?

As it was, I was so freaked out that they were only a few hours away, back in Delta, that when the sun had finally crested over the horizon, stabbing me with its presence, it felt more like penance for my failure to save the boy. Like I deserved each spasm that rippled through me.

This time when we got back to camp, the only ambush awaiting us was Griffin, which was almost worse than what facing her entire army had been when I saw the tightening of her lips as she gave the Jeep a once-over, doing a mental head count even before we’d come to a complete stop.

“What happened?” Her voice was filled with accusation as she turned to Simon, and then me, pointedly letting us know we’d let her down on our first recovery mission.

Nyla answered before either of us had a chance to explain. “Daylighters got there ahead of us. Nothing we could do.”

“Daylighters,” Griffin echoed. “They didn’t see you, did they?”

Before that moment, when I’d seen the look of abject horror cross Griffin’s face, I’d had my doubts about her, like that maybe this whole sending-us-on-a-mission thing had been a setup. That she’d tipped the Daylighters off herself in order to get rid of Simon, Nyla, and me.

Mostly me, I’d suspected.

But now . . . now I didn’t think so. I doubted she’d sacrifice her own camp like that. Not on purpose anyway.

Nyla gave a decisive shake of her head as she jumped down from the Jeep. “’Course not. You think I’da come back here if they had? Nah, they got to the kid before Simon and Kyra could, and then we cleared outta there.”

“Damn,” she muttered. “So they got him? Too bad you couldn’t’ve gotten there sooner.” Griffin lifted her chin defiantly at Simon. “What happened? You used to be the best.”

There was a pause—the kind of extra-long one that makes you aware that there’s so much more than just a pause happening. That subtle communication of locked gazes and eyebrow raises and signals no one else was probably even aware of.

“That was a long time ago,” he said, finally backing down. “I didn’t ask to do this, Griffin. This was your idea. Kyra and I should never have been there at all.” He moved closer to me, creating a united front. “I’m not a recruiter anymore.”

Griffin scowled at me, giving me a this-has-nothing-to-do-with-you look that made me feel like an outsider all over again, and I had to remind myself what Simon had told me about her . . . about her father and everything he’d done to her. It kept me from wanting to slug her for being such a major B about everything.

No wonder she doesn’t trust anyone, I reminded myself. It’s not entirely her fault.

Then she looked Simon up and down as one of her tapered brows ticked up visibly. “Mmm . . . so I see.” And when she was finished giving him an unspoken slap on the wrist, she shrugged as if it had never mattered in the first place. Like what’s-done-is-done.

And so it goes, Billy Pilgrim would have said.

Except this was a real-life person we were talking about, and I wasn’t sure I could flip the switch that easily.

“Well,” Griffin announced, “good news is Jett made amazing progress while you were off playing Rescue Rangers. Now that you’re back, he wants us to join him in the computer lab . . . so he can show us what he’s found so far. We can have him track Daylighter communications too. We wanna make sure they have no idea where we are, or that we ever even knew about the kid in Delta.”

My chest tightened at the mention of the boy, and the proximity of the agents. I choked back a healthy dose of guilt, trying not to imagine him strapped to a gurney, the same way Willow had been back in their central lab. I couldn’t help wishing we’d done more. Tried harder.

I had a moment of panic, though, as I reached nervously for Simon. “My eyes . . . how are they?”

His mouth turned downward as he leaned close, reassuring me with a whispered, “Can’t even tell in the light.” He nodded toward Griffin. “She didn’t notice.”

True. There was no way she’d have let something that significant slide.

By the time we’d reached the computer lab, I was disappointed Tyler hadn’t come out to meet me. That would have been the one consolation to this whole mess, to find him there . . . preferably all alone.

And, in a perfect world, without his shirt.

The alone part wasn’t so far off, however. In fact, when we got to the lab it was practically deserted. Last time I’d been in here, the place had been bustling, with about a half dozen or so of Griffin’s soldiers assigned to monitor radio frequencies, internet traffic, and online activity.

Now it was just Jett and Thom waiting for the four of us.

Apparently Griffin was just as baffled as I was by the absence of activity. “Where is everyone?”

“I cleared the place. What I’m about to show you needs to stay between us.” Jett turned to Nyla. “I think she should go too. We can’t risk it.”